Saturday, November 04, 2006

My posts on new publishing technologies - here and here - as well as my Sunday Times article on the subject were about, primarily, POD - publishing (or printing) on demand. Using POD, books can be printed and bound only when they are sold. Bookshops could thus be reduced to a series of screens for browsing and a few POD machines into which the customer inserts his credit card. But already, it seems, I am behind the times. A British software company has a system that makes books readable on mobile phones. Some publishers seem quite excited about this as it is seen as a way of reaching younger readers. The words are viewed one at a time, as phrases or as a continuous scrolling line. For me, this might work for poems, but would seem to be an unnecessarily challenging approach to Proust. Never mind, people only read Proust when they are ill, a fact that explains the poor asthmatic's entire critical reception. In addition, of course, healthy teenagers are unlikely to read Proust and are happy to do anything on mobile phones. I also now discover Project Gutenberg, a site that provides downloadable books online and, yes, Proust is in there. The downloads are free. Obviously there are copyright issues, but most of the Gutenberg list seems to be out of copyright. There is, it seems, a technophile obsession with going something about the book, an object which has so far remained stubbornly immune to their advances. As I said in my POD article, this is a good thing if it removes power from the grim chain bookshops and hands it to the content providers - the publishers and authors. But I'm queasy about books on phones. This seems to devalue the word itself.

Ignoring some of these comments which are way above my head ;-), could we thus have the happy prospect of all the publishers going bust and everyone reading simply what is in project Gutenberg -- a distillation of all the great works of the world (out of copyright)? (The list I last saw would allow one to skip the Proust and still have enough to keep one going.)

But, Bryan, although I could see your point in said article, what if there is a global technological breakdown? And we were forced to go back to the 'good-old' days, before electricity? We wouldn't have a clue and to have our books taken away too.... well. Give me a (recycled paper) book any day!

Mobile phones too, nah. They're too bloody powerful at the best of times!!

Oh my G**! I can't believe that they are planning to have books on mobile phones. Janet and John, anyone? I sit in meetings at work and hear people betting on when the e-book reader will take off (never is my silent thought), but books on phone--- ouch and double ouch.

A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.